Changing the very essence of learning in the organisation

In my previous post, What does L&D “transformation” really mean? I concluded by saying that L&D transformation won’t come from the application of new learning technologies to solve old training problems, i.e. by creating e-learning or by adding social, mobile, micro, gamification into the mix. Transformation will only come from changing the very essence of what learning means in the organisation.

This first requires a recognition that people “learn” at work in a multitude of ways – not just through training or e-learning – as people carry out their daily jobs and from activities and interactions both in and outside the organisation and that all these ALL need to be valued, encouraged and supported. And that this will only happenby doing things very differently as described below.

1 – SUPPORTING TEAM AND PERSONAL LEARNING

This means working closely with managers and their teams to help them develop a new learning mindset, to help them learn with and from one another as they work – underpinned by enterprise social technologies, as well as encouraging and supporting individuals to take responsibility for their own learning (in and out of the workplace). If you’d like to find out more about this type of work, come and join my upcoming online workshops.

30 May – 24 JuneOnline community management
4-week online workshop that looks at how to support the planning, launch and running of an online community.

2 – ORGANISING MODERN LEARNING AND NETWORKING EXPERIENCES

This means designing and faciliting events and experiences that support knowledge sharing and knowledge building, collaborative problem solving and relationship building throughout the organisation, ones that take place either face-to-face or online, but are much more in tune with the way people learn for themselves: experiential, participative and collaborative. If you’d like to find out more about this type of work, take part in my upcoming online workshops.

2 Comments

I completely agree with your view of transformation ….how can you achieve this when senior executives don’t and won’t buy into this need? How do you start to change the essence of learning in these circumstances, which are made worse by senior leaders behaviours and practices?

You don’t have to start with getting buy in from leaders who don’t understand the new world; you can start with supporting teams and individuals who do (and already doing things for themselves). Then you can demonstrate to the leaders how learning is already changing in their organisation (whether they like it or not), as well as how it is happening in other organisations elsewhere too.